This House Believes that Classical Music is Irrelevant to Today's Youth | The Cambridge Union
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- Date recorded: 12/04/2011
Debate: This House Believes that Classical Music is Irrelevant to Today's Youth.
PROPOSITION:
Joe Bates
Kissy Sell Out
Greg Sandow
Professor Lord Eatwell
OPPOSITION:
Hugo Hickson
Ivan Hewett
Stephen Fry
Suzy Digby
Ayes: 57
Noes: 365
Abstentions: 88
While I really wanted to hear this... the sound levels are killing me. :(
I think classical music is irrelevant to today's youth, but that deplorable--even tragic--fact says nothing about music and everything about the degraded, impoverished lives today's youth lead. Anybody who thinks great art of any kind is irrelevant is worse than a boor. Is great literature irrelevant? Great painting? Great sculpture? What kind of person would think such nonsense? What's the point of art at all if the greatest art is "irrelevant?"
Musical genres are pretty loose in general, who can say what exactly defines them? The more pertinent question would be: Is the term 'classical music' relevant to today's society?
It's not surprising that people who have no idea about the relevance of classical music to today's music call it 'elitist'. I study music for GCSE, and have completed Grade 6 guitar and Grade 5 music theory. I know that classical music is the foundation of all music. The major and minor chords you hear are all from classical, the musical structure is from classical. And the romantic period is incredibly relevant as it was the first to express emotion in music, like what is done today. Wake up!
I enjoy listening to some classic music, it works great in movies. But I can't name one modern composer. It's up to young people like yourself to make it more accessible. You need to make good music and market it to everybody not just classical music fans.
First speaker is very very good
That last example you gave with regards to academic topics are not true. On RUclips "SciShow" and "Minute Physics" are very popular channels. They make complicated topics fun and explain there importance that's why young people like it. I could name some famous Physicists, Mathematicians, Economists, Philosophers etc. but I can't name one modern day composer. Why is this?
1st Speaker doesn't seem to know what he was talking about, Beethoven was a peasant.. Haydn was roughly middle class, certainly nothing special. Tchaikovsky was born in a tiny village in remote Russia.. there is no way that his argument that intellectualism becoming more accessible to the lower classes meant a rise in the intellectual level of folk music, most (not all) pop is still incredibly simplistic and based on easy structures today. Your most talented musicians have always created the most complex music wherever their background, whether that is Beethoven or the great Jazz musicians like Art Tatum or the great pop musicians like Mark Knopfler or Freddie Mercury.
Sadly, it is more likely he does know exactly what he is talking about, he knows these things and yet continues to try and paint people like Beethoven who had to work so hard for their success as just "rich old german men"..
Also, Kissy is right when he says that there isn't enough interactivity in Classical. In any other concert it would not be acceptable for a performer to walk on, play, bow, then walk off without saying a word to the audience. It should be the same in Classical! There is a reason Leonard Bernstein was so popular - he talked to the audience, he put on a show! The same with James Rhodes and Jeremy Denk - they connect with the audience, something all musicians must do. The best Classical performers get away with it because their interpretation/playing is so good, but the connection must be built stronger, it needs that personal touch.
For something to be relevant to something else, it must be in some way pertinent to it, not in a merely semantic relation, but such that can be demonstrated to have real, practical interaction with the thing it is supposed to be relevant to. If we average out the habits, tastes, and practices of people aged between 16 and 30, and then ask "does the tradition of classical music interfere, run-alongside, or in any meaningful way impact this hypothetical averaged-out youth in any of the aforementioned habits, tastes, practices, etc?", then what do we find? The answer becomes apparent: Classical music plays little to no role. Put another way, if all of classical music were to disappear for a month, this youth probably wouldn't notice; and if classical music had never existed, no aspect of their lives would change. I don't understand why there has to be a debate about this - or why there is such apparent shock painted at the faces of those arguing the negative - but it is a self-evident fact. How are you going to claim for a population that doesn't listen to classical, wouldn't be able to name more than ten composers or more than five pieces, that classical music is relevant to them? I would recommend anyone reading, under 30, who is not convinced, next time they are in a car with their friends to blast some Wagner and see what happens. Unless your friends are in the minority of people who listen to classical music, the response will be negative. I have done this multiple times for a laugh, with different groups at different points in my life, and after they tell me to turn it off I ask why they don't like it. I have gotten two types of responses so far: 1) I don't like it because it's boring, and 2) I don't like it because I can't relate to it, it's an archaic sound that I can neither appreciate nor enjoy. That said, I love classical music, listen to it almost exclusively (with the inclusion of jazz), and it would please me to be able to speak about the music I enjoy with someone other than weird old people at recitals; but at the same time, I recognize that classical music is a dying art.
The second speaker in opposition did argue the "relevancy" issue. It's an adequate argument for temperament within all of us, mitigated by our human experiences. If we feel inspired to investigate something seriously, we're likely to have an interest in what we find. His no-brainer comment is adequate because it's much like asserting whatever isn't the mode of the youth isn't "relevant" e.g. the youth are generally not that interested in academic topics, advanced science, and so on.
I never referred to classical music as elitist. I was referring to the Cambridge University audience watching the debate. However, classical music has historically been elitist, the proletariat listened to folk music.
I don't think you can support your claim that "classical music is the foundation of all music". Music can be found in all cultures. Simple African drums are very influential.
The decibel count in this recording, or lack there of, must surely be the CUS's channel's attempt at some twisted pathetic fallacy to support the motion of the house, or a move of unfathomable passive aggression that borders the hilarious. Either way this video is too bloody quiet.
The majority of academic topics receive far less coverage because they are less visual in their application. These examples are hardly ever engaged to an academic level; they are more often facsimiles of the discoveries and achievements.
If you can't name a popular contemporary composer, then who's "fault" could this be? Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass seem to get occasional coverage in the NYTimes, not to mention the people who enjoy and know the names of their favorite film score composers.
Not everything which is relevant can be reduced to a youtube video. I think you are also confusing relevance with popular appeal. If something has been proven to have beneficial effects as classical music has been in Venezuela then it should be relevant at least in that it is an interesting social phenomenon. And you cannot argue in this day and age that it is inaccessible. The internet and lower ticket prices mean that it is essential available to anyone who wishes to find out about it.
It all started with classical~just add some 7ths and beats to change it up
It's already got 13ths I hardly think that 7ths are going to make a fat lot of difference.
It's not surprising that an 'elitist audience' would oppose the motion but that stance is delusional. You tube Kayne's new album Yeezus and you will see young people debating whether they like it or not. Classical music doesn't get most of the youth interested in the same way, hence it's not relevant.
Stephen Fry's team just debated the value of the genre and that was not what the debate was about. They also suggested that all 'pop' music is only made for dancing which is complete rubbish.
So irrelevance is that which only touches a minority? The 5.9 million weekly listeners of Classical FM may disagree. Yes, numerically, they are a minority, but you be careful with your numbers when you deem a demophraphic as irrelevant. I'm a youth who admires, respects and finds a great deal of inspiration and education from Classical Music, am I irrelevant? Is this music irrelevant to me? You deem the opposition as "elitist". This is a subjective term. And thus it has no place in an argument. You disagree? Provide me with evidence or an example otherwise. If you are unable, you show yourself only to be an opinionated and hot tempered individual who shouldn't be involved in an intellectual debate.It's "complete rubbish" that pop music is designed for dance? Perhaps not 100%, but above 90%? Likely. In every dance club in the country, pop music will be played. Dancing to this will occur, but rarely if ever will you see a true admirer of classical music dance to such. That's because, sociological context defines dance as fluid. In the days of Balls, slow dancing may have occurred to this genre, but the sociology has changed vastly. The opposition is not elitist for making this argument, though I suppose in accordance with your own weak, subjective argument, I am too elitist, if for nothing else, enjoying classical music and deeming it more relevant than you.
The problem with a great deal, but not all of classic music is that its religion based and often depressing. Ethnic music is the best, because it comes from life.